Allen's Jumper Is Missing in Action

BOSTON

You keep thinking, as Ray Allen does, that his next shot is going in. They went in when he played at U-Conn., when he played for the Milwaukee Bucks, when he played for the Seattle SuperSonics. They went in at a higher rate and with greater volume in the playoffs than in the regular season. You keep thinking, as Ray Allen does, that he can't keep shooting bricks and air balls because he has been one of the NBA's great jump shooters for the past dozen years. You keep figuring Allen's going to break out of this marathon shooting slump soon because this is the best chance he has had to play for a championship and the Boston Celtics are so much better off with Ray Allen playing like Ray Allen.

But the misses just keep on coming, one after another, one night after another, now one series after another. It doesn't even look like Allen shooting. The shot is too flat. It's rushed. Most times the ball is not even in the cylinder. The most stylish shooter of his era, the man who starred as a youngster in the movie "He Got Game" as the prolific recruit Jesus Shuttlesworth is so off his game that it's impossible to ignore the topic even though his team is up 1-0 on the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals.

It grows golf course quiet in the new Garden every time Allen shoots now, as if a polite silence will help him find his stroke. Nobody wants to boo or jump to ridicule Allen because he has been too good, too good a teammate, too good a player, too admirable a public figure. But the silence is screaming, "Oh my God, what's happened to Ray Allen?"

"They're wondering why it's not going in," he said the other day, "just like I am." Before practice Wednesday he told reporters, "I think personally, it's been tougher than anything I've ever seen."

It's hard to imagine the Celtics winning a championship unless Allen finds his jump shot. It's hard to see the Celtics breaking through on the road if Allen continues to have single-digit scoring nights. Remember, Allen was the No. 2 man in the Big Three that brought the Celtics their great reversal of fortune.

We're talking about a man who averaged 23, 23.9, 25.1 and 26.4 points per game in the four years leading up to this season. We're talking about a player who averaged 24 points per game on 47 percent shooting in his first 37 career playoff games now averaging 12.5 points per game on 38 percent shooting in 15 playoff games this postseason.

The last three games, Allen has missed 17 of 24 shots. In Game 1 against the Pistons, he was 3 of 10. He was 1 for 6 in Game 7 against Cleveland, 3 for 8 the game before that, 4 for 11 the game before that, and missed 8 of 9 three-pointers in those three games. He has missed 32 of his last 38 three-pointers.

With a 10-3 lead Tuesday night in Game 1, the Celtics went out of their way to find Allen on a fast break, getting him the ball for a wide-open three-pointer. Air ball.

It's painful to watch because Allen works so diligently, make that obsessively, at being a great shooter and has for his entire career. The air ball was symbolic of what's happened, or failed to happen lately. "I got to the point," Allen told reporters Tuesday night, "that I had taken that shot thousands of times and I had a great feeling because I felt free -- more free than I had felt. The way the game was flowing, I had a great rhythm and I guess I was so amped and ready to go. So it's good to get those shots because now I am developing my rhythm again."

Allen, developing? Wow.